PALM#1. 381 



terms. Besides hymeniym above explained, he has 

 scarcely introduced any other than peridium, for the 

 round membranous dry case of the seeds in some 

 of the first section. The term pileus, a hat, is used 

 by all authors for the head of those fungi that com- 

 pose the second section. 



APPENDIX. Palmce. The natural order of Palms 

 was so little understood when Linnaeus formed his 

 systematical arrangement of plants, and so few of their 

 flowers had been scientifically examined, that he was 



v/ 



under the necessity of leaving this order as an appendix 

 to his system, till it could be better investigated. To 

 its peculiar habit and physiology we have adverted in 

 several of the foregoing pages, see p. 45, 48, 103, &c. 

 Late observations show Palms to have for the most 

 part six stamens, rarely three or nine, with three or six 

 petals, and one or three styles ; which last are some- 

 times in the same flower with the stamens, sometimes 

 in a separate one, but both flowers always agree in 

 general structure. Their fruit js generally a drupa. 

 They are akin to the liliaceous tribe, and Linnaeus 

 happily terms them the princes of the vegetable king- 

 dom. His most numerous remarks concerning them 

 occur in his Pradectiones in Ordincs Naturales Plan- 

 tarum, published by Professor Giseke at Hamburgh in 

 179^, from private lectures and conversations of Lin- 

 naeus. This work however is necessarily full of errors 

 and mistakes, not only from its mode of compilation 



